Still-Hunting

By Thomas K. Remington

Finding your prey while still-hunting can sometimes be difficult.
Photo by Tom Remington

 

Through my travels and communications with hunters all over North America, the subject of still-hunting usually comes up somewhere in a conversation. The common factor about still-hunting is there is no true definition of what it really is. A general description would read something like this: hunting slowly through the woods attempting to move undetected.

As with anything, still-hunting has as many variances as there are hunters to talk about them. One of the reasons for this is the type of terrain you choose to hunt. This discussion will focus on the Maine woods and some techniques and interesting observations that have been made by other hunters and myself over the years. If nothing else, I hope that you can learn at least one thing from this article.

It really goes without saying that every hunter that enters the woods during whitetail deer season, is searching for that illusive “monster buck”. Some of us have been successful more than once and others have hunted for years and still have not bagged the one they are so patiently waiting for. Experienced hunters will agree that a certain percentage of success in bagging that trophy buck is luck and the percentage will vary greatly as well. Personally, I think luck plays a huge roll but there are things that you can do as a hunter to increase your luck.

There’s no better teacher than experience, so by all means get out into the woods as often as you can and open up your mind and learn – even if from your mistakes. Let’s focus for a few minutes on the advantages and some techniques on still-hunting.

More than likely we have all scouted out a particular area that we think we will find deer in. If this isn’t something that you have done in the past, it is something you should begin doing now. Often, we learn those areas because we hunt in the same territories year after year. Over time you will learn what areas within the scope of where you hunt produce deer and which ones don’t. Generally speaking a productive area will continue to produce activity year after year but there are certain elements that will affect that.

Once you have an area, the smaller probably the better, one way to hunt that patch is called still-hunting. This is a technique that hunters use to move into an area in search of deer usually when deer don’t seem to be moving. Many of us would prefer to find our favorite stand and wait for the deer to come by us. But not always are deer eager to move around and we may want to go to where they are and “sneak up on them”.

I have put together what I call my 4 points to a successful still-hunt:

Point 1. Patience – This, in my opinion, is the single most important factor in still-hunting. If you don’t have patience you don’t stand a chance. If you haven’t learned the hard way yet, deer can wait on you for what seems an eternity. Patience comes into play in many ways. One way is just the ability to not worry about how much ground that you have covered. Try to concentrate on moving painstakingly slow with little or no noise. Patience is also necessary when attempting to determine everything that is in the scope of your vision. It is necessary to identify all objects that are visible to you. I know over the years that I have hunted, many a deer turned into a tree and just disappeared or I witnessed a blow-down get up and run away.

In between the movements of one or two steps at a time, there should be long periods of standing perfectly still and this requires the utmost of patience.

Point 2. Factors You Can Control – There are certain factors or elements that we as hunters can control. Taking stock in these before and during your hunt can greatly reduce the chances of being discovered by your prey if not actually increasing your chances of success.

Be aware of your own scent. I always try to look at being in the woods in this way. It really helps me in gaining a better understanding of what I need to do and not do. You are intruding in the living room of the deer. Reverse the roles for a second and imagine if you will, that someone comes onto your property and nears your home. At your home you have familiar sounds many of which we recognize in our sub-conscience. If you detect a foreign sound, you become alert and probably get up off your couch to find out what it is. This holds true as well for odors. Animals do the same. They recognize strange odors and noise the same as we do and most times, their senses are much keener than ours are.
Hi-tech clothing today can “lock out” many of our odors. Old-timers used to leave their hunting clothes out in the shed. My Uncle used to put his in a basket of apples until it was time to wear them again. Many hunters opt to use some kind of scent mask to help cover or disguise their own smells.

I don’t know if this is proven scientifically or not but I was told at one time that a human scent to a deer gets the same reaction as a skunk smell to a human. I’ve never sat down and kept accurate records but I think I can quite easily say that when I go to hunting camp for a week, we see more deer earlier in the week than later. As our clothes become more and more saturated with the smells of bacon grease, wood smoke, all the common odors associated with a hunting camp combined with the build up of perspiration odors, it can get pretty darn rank.

When making your plans for your still-hunt, you need to asses the weather conditions – time of day, temperature, forecast and wind direction. Time of day can help you in determining what might happen to your scent. On a clear morning with a forecast of sunshine and warming temperatures, your scent will tend to rise, as do the temperatures. Conversely, at the end of the day as the temperatures cool, scents would tend to sink.

This goes hand in hand with temperature outside. Temperatures can fall rapidly with the passing of a cold front and rise sharply with an approaching warm front. The important thing is to be aware of conditions and adjust your hunt to them.

One of the most important weather factors of course is the wind direction. While still- hunting, the wind should never be at your back but don’t always assume that just because when you left your vehicle or hunting camp and the winds were light out of the west that they will be that way everywhere. Depending upon terrain, winds can swirl and shift without notice. Many times I have had a slight breeze in my face and as I approached the base of a hillside or mountainside, the wind came rushing from my backside as warming air followed the up-slope. Wind can also be forced through a ravine or gut depending upon certain conditions.

Another important factor that can be of significant help to the hunter is to know your terrain and the area you are going to hunt. Remember that you’re in their element now and they have the advantage. You can reduce their advantage by increasing yours. Study the terrain. This can be done anytime of the year. Know where the draws are and where the ridges, knolls and “hogbacks” are. One of the most difficult places to hunt is where there are a lot of small hills and ravines. Deer will always be on the opposite side of you. That’s because they know their terrain.

Easy to spot tracks can make your still-hunt effort easier.
Photo by Milt Inman

Point 3. Your Movements – The word “still” used in still-hunting is not totally accurate as you can well imagine. It should more accurately describe your movements while hunting a “hot” area than just hunting. As the title indicates, when deciding to still-hunt a favorite area your movements should be slow and limited. The next point I will discuss is about senses and these two really go hand in hand.

First let’s talk about the movements of a deer. Deer aren’t stupid but they do act on instincts. Their instincts become developed over time from their own experiences. An example maybe a young buck escapes certain peril by choosing an escape route. His instincts will tell him next time that that was a pretty good thing to do and he should repeat it.

Deer also don’t want to expose themselves to wide-open spaces, especially the big buck – which is why he is big. The crafty ones hang back in the thickets and remain as stealth as they can for protection. When deer make a move in the woods to escape danger, they general have a route planned and are gone long before you get there if you don’t use good techniques while hunting.

Knowing deer movements will help you in being able to spot a deer in the woods and also to recognize subtle movements and sounds. If a deer is standing unmolested in the woods, its movements are limited. If a deer is feeding, their head and neck will be moving up and down. When a deer puts its head down for food, it will pick its head back up and at the same time is very much aware of what is going on around them. They are looking around, smelling the air and if you have ever had the opportunity to observe a deer doing this, you’ll see that their ears are constantly twitching and rotating picking up sounds.

Along with the twitching of the ears, comes the almost constant movement of the tail. When not in danger the tail of the whitetail deer remains mostly limp but like most animals with a tail, it flicks back and forth. As your experience grows as a hunter, it becomes easier for you to pick up the slightest of movements – the twitch of an ear or the flick of a tail.

More times than not, deer will be lying down when you approach them. When a deer beds down, they don’t lay completely down. Their hind end lays flat on the ground and they prop themselves up on their front legs while keeping their heads up. They may have their eyes closed but trust me, their senses are on high alert and they hear all the sounds and smell all the smells. While lying down, the only real movement a deer makes is a rotation of the ears searching for sounds. You may also notice a slight movement of the head from side to side but that is very difficult to detect.

When a deer decides it is time to run, there are some things that take place just prior to that. I have sat for long periods of time during hunting season and watched deer. I have learned a great deal about their habits by doing this. I am not a biologist and I cannot accurately explain all the glands and every location of them on a deer. These glands secret liquids that have odors that other deer can recognize and deer use these as a means of communicating danger to one another. They also use their “white tails”, thus the name whitetail deer. When danger is eminent, the deer raises it’s tail straight up and many times it actually curls up onto their back. At the same time, the white hair located on the underside of the tail and around the butt area, flares outward and makes a large white area that many times appears a big as an airport landing strip to a hunter. Then the deer bolts and is out of sight. I have always said that when you see the whitetail of the deer, your chances are pretty much gone.

When deer run it is not always done the same way. The most noticeable run by a deer would be the long graceful leaps. Their legs are powerful and capable of jumping very high into the air and can leap long distances as well. You need to know as well that deer are generally short-winded and cannot run at high speeds for long periods of time. It’s also something they don’t care to do because while running the keen senses don’t operate the way they do when standing still.

A deer will also trot. When they do this, the spacing between all four feet is equal. Many times when you jump a deer in the woods and they take off running they will run fast for a short distance to clear the immediate danger and then slow to a trot for a time before stopping completely. When they stop, they will usually turn broadside and look back in the direction of the perceived danger.

I have walked by deer before only to hear a noise behind me and when I turned to see what it was, I saw that big old white tail smiling back at me. Many times deer will stand still or remain laying down and watch you walk past and then get up and run away. I have also witnessed a big buck bedded down under a small fir tree in a fairly dense thicket. We saw each other about the same time and he knew I was much too close for him to just jump up and run away, so he began to crawl on his belly attempting to get away.

Deer don’t just run off for the sake of running away. That would be unwise for the deer as they could just run into more danger. Before they decide to run, they will recognize what they are running from. I can’t say that a deer will actually reason out a situation and determine they are dealing with a hunter. Most times they just learn what is dangerous or abnormal to them and their instincts tell them to move on.

If you see something you don’t recognize, what do you do? If you are like me, you probably stare at it until you are able to make a determination. Deer are the same way and I have seen them do some odd things before to help them in their decision making. A common tactic for a deer to use is to stomp their front feet at an unknown object to see if they can startle it and get it to move. They blow or snort very loudly as well and bob their head up and down.

Have you ever come face to face with a deer in the woods? Maybe a deer walks out in front of you while you are sitting and spots you but because you are sitting and sitting motionless, the deer doesn’t know what you are. The deer may stop and stand absolutely still for a long time, almost playing a game of cat and mouse. A deer is more capable of recognizing objects when they are moving.

These are only a few of the movements and tactics that deer utilize in their everyday habits and for escaping danger. As you hunt more and more and have the opportunity to experience these things, your understanding of the whitetail deer will grow. With this knowledge you are more easily capable of recognizing a deer in the woods sooner and thus increasing your chances of success.

Now let’s talk about your movements. As I stated above, deer can more easily recognize objects that are moving. It would only stand to reason then that the less you move the less likely you will be recognized.

When you opt to still-hunt a section of woods and you have factored in the weather conditions etc., you must move painstakingly slow. Everyone who still hunts has their own style and techniques that they use and I’m sure most of them are good solid techniques and more than likely they use them because they have worked for them in the past. As time goes by and you become more capable at still-hunting, you will develop your own style.

Still-hunting requires a lot of concentration and with that the sharpening of your own senses, which we will talk about in a few minutes. As you begin to take steps, make them short and slow. With short steps you are better able to control each step and the pressure you put down as well. Short steps help you to maintain a good balance at all times. All movements should be slow. Pick the spot where you want to step. Try to use just your eyes to look up and down as a deer could spot unnecessary head movement. Finding a spot to step that will produce the least amount of noise is certainly helpful but not at the risk of compromising all the other good techniques.

This is probably a good time to talk about noise. We all have hunted in “corn flakes”. This is an area in the hardwood forest where the leaves have fallen and sit dry and fluffy and every step you take seems to echo from sea to shining sea. There are many theories about noise and how deer recognize it and I am not going to second guess anyone else’s theories. Experienced hunters can spend hours telling you stories of how they walked up onto a deer and it was the noisiest walking ever and others when they couldn’t begin to get close to game. I think there are way too many factors to be able to narrow it down to any one or two things.

What bothers me most about noise is it takes away my ability to hear. When crunching down on piles of dry maple leaves, I couldn’t hear if a deer blew at me. So most of my concern about noise is my ability to hear and not whether a deer hears me. I don’t believe that a deer has the ability to recognize a hunter by sound only. The sound will put them on high alert and now they are scanning the horizon in the direction the noise came from looking for movement. So with that in mind, if you mistakenly step onto a limb that snaps or slip and slide while trying to negotiate a step forward, remain calm and still and just wait.

One more tip that I have heard hunters relay to me about noise. They believe and understand that a certain amount of noise while still-hunting in unavoidable so they try to mask or decoy their own noises and make them sound like other forest noises that deer may be more used to. An example: Squirrels and chipmunks are always rustling in the leaves. If you listen to them for awhile you will notice that very often there is constant rustling followed by a short span of quiet and then rustling again. One hunter told me he shuffles his feet through the dry leaves as he steps forward trying to mimic the sound of squirrels.

There are a few things you should keep in mind while still-hunting that will help to minimize your movements and keep you in a position of readiness. If possible stay out of the bright direct sunlight. With the sun shining on your exposed skin or on hunter orange, it reflects greatly to the deer’s eyesight and helps them to be able to see your movements much easier.

Try to move behind cover when possible. Instead of moving through wide open easy to maneuver places, try coming up behind low growing shrubs and evergreen trees. You obviously don’t want to block your own vision nor do you want to put yourself in a position where you cannot shoot. Any objects within your surrounding that you can use easily to help camouflage you will help tremendously. When I am in the right spots, I like to squat down and stay low but remember when getting into those positions, move slowly. Try if you can to blend in with your surroundings. Use rocks, limbs, brush piles, blow-downs and anything else you can that is part of the woods to hide yourself.

In your exhausting attempts to blend in and camouflage yourself, don’t compromise your position so you are not able to shoot when you want. Carry your rifle in a way that is comfortable for you yet will allow you to easily, with the least amount of movement, raise it to your shoulder and take aim. I prefer to cradle it in my arms in front of me keeping one hand at the grip near the trigger.

The excitement of finding a rub during
your hunt sure gets the blood pumping!
Photo by Milt Inman

Point 4. Senses – Yours and theirs – Your senses cannot compare to that of a deer. Your biggest asset that you have over that of a deer is your brain and that many times gets you into trouble. Let’s look briefly at a deer’s senses.

A deer has remarkable eyesight but it may not be their keenest sense. As I understand, a deer sees in basic black and white. If this is true then the hunter orange that is required in many states now, would appear white or at least very light to a deer. One of their biggest assets is there ability to pick up movement. I have had several “staring matches” with deer over the years. By sitting perfectly still, it is very hard for a deer to spot you. One little movement though and you’ll be seeing the whites of their tales.

Hearing is in my opinion their strength. If you were to study a deer in the woods, you would notice that their ears are big and shaped to collect sounds. A deer’s ears can rotate at least 180 degrees quickly. Once a sound is detected, a deer now knows in what direction to watch.

Let’s not forget about the sense of smell. We have discussed already the importance of odors and trying to mask them in some form. Down wind a deer can pick up aromas from a long distance. Mature deer learn over time to recognize certain aromas and know which ones can present danger.

When a deer puts together all of their senses, it is difficult for any hunter to get very close. I will be the first to admit that more times than not when I got close enough to a deer to get a shot, it was because of the deer’s mistakes not my cleverness.

Now let’s look at your senses. Some of us have good hearing and many of us don’t. The same holds true for eyesight as well and forget about our ability to smell. We think because we can smell out a blooming onion at the fair that we got good sense of smell. Put them all together and we can be decent but fall far short of those of a deer.

If we combine our senses with our power to reason and our chances go up considerably if applied properly. The human is lazy when it comes to using our senses. Because of our intelligence, we rely on that so much we don’t exercise our other senses enough. Combine with that an inability to concentrate and many times our trip to the forest for a day of deer hunting could be considered a waste of time.

So what can you do? First is to work on improving your powers of concentration. When you decide to still-hunt an area, choose a small section that will not take a long time. Initially the shorter time spans will not require long periods of concentration and then you can build from there.

With the concentration comes focus. Think about what you’re doing and how you are doing it. You must continually convince yourself that behind every bush and around every corner, stands a trophy. If you don’t believe that, the task at hand becomes that much harder to achieve.

With an increased ability to concentrate and focus, you can now apply your knowledge to your hunt. Of course knowledge comes from experience and the only way you’ll get that is by going into the woods and learning. It helps to read stories and articles from experienced hunters but until it happens to you, often it won’t be remembered.

Use your brain. That is the strongest element you can use for a successful hunt. Learn the sounds of the forest and know what causes them. Learn to distinguish between a red squirrel foraging for beechnuts and a deer walking through the leaves. One mistake we have all made is passing off a noise as being something other than a deer. Many times it takes several minutes of listening before I can tell exactly what a particular noise is. Here is a scenario that is played out time and time again while hunting. You are still-hunting your favorite area. Part way through your hunt, you hear a noise. You listen and wait. You’re not sure what it is and after a moment or two the noise stops. You wait for a few more minutes and because you now haven’t heard the noise again you take one step forward – crash, crash, crash! You watch in disbelief as a nice deer has taken off out through the thicket. Often that noise your heard was a deer standing up from its bed. They were standing perfectly still and waiting to see if they could detect any movement and when you moved, they were headed in the other direction.

Even though you don’t have the eyesight of a deer, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to use it. Again, we have a brain and what we see we can reason out in our minds and our ability to recognize objects far exceeds that of a deer. The key here is the recognition factor that comes with experience. I stated earlier how I had been witness to many a tree or a blow-down that turned into a deer and ran away. It’s true. As you are still-hunting, you spend much time standing still. This is the time you should be scouring the forest for any kind of movement or objects that may appear out of place. Many hunters have good eyesight and a relative uncanny ability to pick up a flicker of deer’s ear several yards through the woods. Not all of us can do that but we can do other things. I learned from experience many years ago, to look for horizontal lines. About all the trees that I know grow toward the sky and that means the edges of those trees create vertical lines. A deer has a long body and across its back and along its belly, they create a horizontal line when standing in amongst the trees. That’s why I said I have seen blow-downs run away.

Another thing to look for is a dark object or blobs I call them. In dense growth a deer would first appear as a dark, muted and perhaps unrecognizable object. Their brown and black hair gets darker when out of sunlight and in between the forest trees, shrubs and undergrowth.

Some hunters prefer to carry binoculars to aid them in spotting game in the woods. This of course is individual preference and sometimes the good can out weigh the bad. You need to decide for yourself what you are comfortable with and go with it.

I would like to summarize this by saying that still-hunting is only one aspect of deer hunting. To be a good hunter I believe you need to practice all aspects of it. When you go into the forest, open your mind up to the world around you. There is so much to learn but you have to be receptive to the idea.

What I have shared with you here are my experiences and some that have been shared with me over the years. I hope you can use some of this information as a guideline to help get you started. Get around experienced hunters and ask questions. Most are willing to share their knowledge and you can begin to apply it to your own hunts. Over time, you will develop a style and techniques of your own and hopefully will help you in bagging that trophy whitetail.